


The Cowl Does Not Make The Monk

by Hebi_Grin



Series: This is not a proper use of the phrase "Butterfly Effect" [1]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Clothing Porn, Dom/sub Undertones, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post Joui War, Pre-Series, Sakata Gintoki (mentioned) - Freeform, Self-translation, Shinsuke has a bad influence on Zura... Maybe, TakaZura - Freeform, Trying to Cope, Yoshida Shouyou (mentioned) - Freeform, alcohol use, angst & comedy, did i create an animal oc?, does this count as a date?, hair porn, implied PTSD, joui is not joui, kind of, terrorists being terrorists, zura pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 00:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17477933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hebi_Grin/pseuds/Hebi_Grin
Summary: As Katsura cared much about his old friends, he had never done anything to look for them since they had parted their ways. Only the three of them could understand one another's suffering, but he thought it had been too little time since everything had shattered around and inside them, and he had been too busy putting the pieces back together and building an icy but still thin armor on himself, which would have sufficed some crack to crumble down. Yet, he would not refuse contact with them if, as now, they sought him.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well... It was meant to be an Only chapter, but it was pretty long so I split it in two parts.  
> Second chapter will be published when I'll have translated it adequately! (maybe tomorrow).  
> English is not my first language, so feel free to correct my mistakes!

 

 

  
Katsura doubted he would ever learn to love Edo, much less the weak, compliant people who lived there.  
  
The long series of Joui wars had ended on November 21st of the previous year, the day when Shouyou-sensei had been beheaded by Gintoki. He could not forget that date that had marked the end of life that he had known until then even if he would have wanted to.  
He had tried for a few weeks, however, when he could no longer distinguish reality from dreams – _nightmares_ – that he had the rare times he could fall asleep, not knowing which of the two things was worse.  
  
For days he had not been able to recognize his own shape as he reflected himself at the shop windows as he dragged himself wearily through the streets of that crowded and alien city where he had just arrived; the body did not seem to belong to him nor managed to govern it anymore and proceeded by inertia, as if he was guided by a stronger force that he could not understand but bind him to continue and look for a path to go out of the void in which he had sunk; the mind, in a disjointed and fragmentary way, traced the same scene that had taken place that day before his eyes, powerless to do anything.

 _Again, again, again._  
  
It had taken some time for him to unravel some of the confusion he was facing in order to understand that he felt aversion and hatred and was deeply angry. Those feelings burned in him like an unquenchable flame and pervaded his whole soul.  
Perhaps, he thought, that was the force that had driven him to carry on.  
Throwing the wrath of the Noble of Fury on the Bakufu, tearing it off piece by piece, destroying it and reviving the Country from the ashes, creating a world in which his comrades whom he had not seen since that day and Shouyou-sensei would have loved to live.  
He didn’t want to forget, that was one of the few certainties that were left to him.  
  
After a few months, walking with more confidence and determination on the dusty and dirty but now known streets of the city, when his image was reflected in the windows still happened to not recognize himself, but now it was because he had made so much _his_ certain disguises sewn on his own body with care, one by one, that he forgot he was wearing them.  
Katsura the waiter, the roundsman, the workman, the bouncer, the pet sitter.  
The hostess in the nightclubs, which to his surprise he seemed to do better than most of the other part-time jobs, without anyone noticing they had a man in front of them and found it to be a great way to gain valuable information from customers of the Bakufu – who often asked for his company – after some simpering and glass of expensive Don Peri.  
And Katsura the monk, as in that afternoon.  
_He was all of them, and at the same time none of them._  
  
What linked them was to be called Katsura Kotarou – Zurako, when he wore female clothes  – and the thrill of rage that crossed their souls under their shells as thin as their skin whenever they met Amanto or the inhabitants of Edo passively accepted their dirty presence.  
  
If the people did not want to be saved, so they could be sacrificed to the cause without too many pains or remorse. The inhabitants were not allies, they were not comrades. There were few people who could be defined in this way in Edo.  
They were mostly relatives and friends of the dead at the time of the war – but few of them had actually fought at the time and survived – who had sworn on their honor not to make the sacrifice of their loved ones vain, to break down the Shogunate who betrayed them, to expel the Amanto from the Country and found a new and better one, gathering around the Noble of Fury, the war hero, chosen as their Leader.  
  
_"A samurai must serve and protect his Lord faithfully until death, but if it is that Lord who betrays the Country, then he deserves divine punishment to fall upon his head._  
_The true master of a samurai is his homeland "._  
  
This was the conviction of all of them and of the Leader.  
  
 

 

*

 

The same moment he turned into the street where his apartment was located, he felt a presence and looked up.  
He stopped only the time of a long sigh as if his feet had missed a step as the heart skipped a beat.

His eyes laid on the man with his back resting on the electric pole less than fifty meters from him, just beyond his home. He could see his left profile and his features, familiar and stranger at the same time: a beautiful kimono, an elaborate and lavish haori whose gold inserts sparkled in the light of the early winter's sun  – _A garment that alone is worth more than all my possessions_ , he thought –, the shining black sheath of a guardless katana, a white bandage to conceal his left eye, a kiseru to the mouth from which he immediately puffed a small curl of smoke.  
The bandages and the kiseru were novelties, and if Katsura knew and understood the reason behind the first, the second was a mystery.  
  
The other did not turn in his direction, nor Katsura gave him a look more than necessary. Instead, he proceeded to the entrance and walked in. He left the door open in a silent invitation to enter if he wanted to, but he found himself hoping in his heart that he would not.  
  
As Katsura cared much about his old friends, he had never done anything to look for them since they had parted their ways. Only the three of them could understand one another's suffering, but he thought it had been too little time since everything had shattered around and inside them, and he had been too busy putting the pieces back together and building an icy but still thin armour on himself, which would have sufficed some crack to crumble down. Yet, he would not refuse contact with them if, as now, they sought him.  
  
He had removed the zori and just laid the stick and the straw hat when he heard the door close behind him.  
  
"Ohi, Zura. Have you taken vows?"  
Kotarou sighed deeply and closed his eyes as he untied the blue vest over the black samue and began to fold it carefully.  
"My name is Katsura, and don’t be silly," he replied with forced detachment, not turning around but looking at his movements out of the corner of an eye as he put the garment away.

Takasugi seemed to be studying the bare environment, looking around. The uneven boards of the floor creaked under his feet in the one room that served as a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. Only the bathroom was separate.  
A sink and a stove, some furniture whose holes were evident signs of having been worm-eaten; a futon not picked up in the closet, but carefully remade; a low table made of oak wood that once must have been valuable, but now it was irreparably damaged by marks left by blades and had lost its polish.  
A coat of varnish had evidently been passed in places where some spots left by the humidity due to infiltrations could be seen.  
The smell of cheap sardine oil used as fuel for andon lamps was barely perceptible, covered with the aroma of dried lavender flowers and orange peel burnt at the fire of the small brazier in the centre of the room.    
Although everything seemed to be old and humble, it was clean and tidy, resulting dignified.  
_Kotarou thought that it was a strange frame in which to see moving someone so elegantly dressed._  
  
"It took me an eternity to find your hiding place."  
"Then it obviously works. The Shogunate dogs are not as cunning as you are," Kotarou replied and lightly turned his head to throw a fleeting glance at him.  
"I’m making tea. Want some?" He asked then with mild kindness as he filled the kettle with a carafe of water.  
"Don’t you have sake?"  
  
Katsura put down the jug, turned on the stove and then himself around completely to look at him. He involuntarily frowned and tightened his lips beginning to nibble the inside of the bottom one, then sighed.  
"Unfortunately no, I don’t have any. On my current finances, I have to make choices. But it's just three o'clock, it would still be too early for alcohol anyway," he began in a cold and stern tone.  
The weight of his body involuntarily shifted from the right foot to the left, unconsciously marking the passage from a rational to an emotional state.  
"I hope you haven’t started drinking at improper times. Have you?" He added. He had endeavoured to maintain a neutral inflexion but a slight note of apprehension could easily be noticed between the lines.  
  
"Don’t worry, I just thought it was more appropriate than tea to celebrate my ability to find you."  
Katsura snorted and rolled his eyes.  
"Well then, I'll offer it to you tonight. So we should solve both the problem of money and improper time," Takasugi concluded.  
  
Katsura laid his back on the cabinet next to the stove and observed the other carefully. He folded his arms and hid his hands in his sleeves in a defensive attitude, flaunting a certainty he was looking for, as if he could find it in the pockets.  
"So you’re planning to stay in Edo?" He said faster than he would mean: a veil of anxiety had been thrown on his words, escaping his control.  
"Not for long, I just have some business here," Shinsuke said vaguely and threw a quick and intense look to Kotarou, making the other realize that he had noticed his tension and squeeze his fingers around his forearms.

"And you have time to go for a drink?" He lifted his chin and puffed his chest slightly, as he had done countless times when he had scolded him or tried to assert his role as Leader of the Four Generals in the chain of command.  
"I have all the time I decide to have, no more, no less."  
"You boast–." The hiss of the kettle interrupted him.  
"Saved by the bell, Zura?" Takasugi chuckled.  
"Katsura. Shut up. Tea tastes worse if made in disturbance," He replied bitterly, and the slight flicker of his hand as he infused the tea into the two cups revealed his tenseness, which he tamed just before he turned to bring the cups to the table.  
  
Both sat and remained motionless for a long time, only looking at each other without blinking or touching the cups.  
Katsura felt a strange sensation in the stomach and decided it was discomfort, that he thought he was probably the only one to feel.  
He wrapped his hands around the cup and found comfortable the heat emanating on them, still chilled by the low temperature outside.  
He cleared his throat, resolving that he was the one meant to stop the stall.  
"Were you in Kyoto?" He began, pretending to be casual.  
He closed his eyes and his lips touched the cup but he did not drink, just blowing on the surface to cool tea a bit.  
"That's it, I'm staying there."

  
Kotarou had deduced Shinsuke had gone to the imperial city because when they had parted their directions were opposite, but suddenly memories of the previous hours awakened in his mind.  
As long as he had Takasugi near it would have been a constant inducement to his mind to return there. And he could do nothing to prevent it.  
  
  
  
_"You have to clean the wound," he had told him absently and his eyes blank, sitting on his knees beside him._  
_The other was still lying on the ground, blood dripping from what until recently – a few minutes or hours, Katsura could not say – was his left eye._  
_As if the squall he had given out to Gintoki had muted him, the other remained silent and motionless._  
  
_Kotarou handed him a piece of cloth as clean as possible, torn from his coat and rinsed off with water from a flask that he now held on his lap; the hand halfway between them, uncertain whether to take the initiative and if the other was willing to be touched._  
_Takasugi had pushed it away with derisive force, still violent, and dissolved the doubt._  
  
_"Shinsuke, at least let me clean the blood."_  
_"Who cares now? Leave me alone," he had answered; his voice barely more than an audible whisper._  
  
_Katsura had bitten his lower lip until he split it, and had turned his gaze to the opposite side, towards Gintoki's back and Shouyou's head and body._  
_"There's still one more thing we have to do all three together."_  
  
  
Katsura opened his eyes and looked at Takasugi: he did not want to forget, but even think about it and relive those moments.    
Shinsuke in front of him was wearing bandages – though his wound had to be healed for months, at least – and this gave Kotarou kind of relief, tangible evidence of what was the real present to which he had to return, an anchor to it.  
  
  
"Did you get lost? Kyoto is to the other way. You had to go west, and you went to the east," he answered without a shred of irony; the voice cold and sharp as the blade of a katana.  
"Don't say rubbish. I'm here because I wanted to."  
"What for? A courtesy visit?"  
"I’d rather call it a business trip."  
"Business," Katsura repeated; the pointers tracing the edge of the cup. "What kind of business? Did you start trading like Sakamoto?"  
"I told you not to say nonsense. Have you heard about someone who seems to be gathering the Joui to try to overthrow the Bakufu?" He asked suggestively.  
Kotarou looked at the surface of the drink: no tea stalk was floating vertically on the surface, and he did not find it a good sign.  
" ... I don’t know what you're talking about," he lied, not knowing why.

A glance from Takasugi informed him that he already knew and lies were useless and urged him to tell the truth.  
"Yes, I'm gathering the Joui."  
"Me too."  
"Really? Found someone?"  
"I reformed the Kihetai a few months ago."  
Katsura slowly put the cup on the table and rested his hands on his laps.  
"The attempted assassination of the Shogun at the visit to the emperor last month in Kyoto ... So it was you."  
"That didn’t go as I expected, but yes."  
"You took a huge risk, Takasugi. What if they had taken you, now your head would be exposed to rot on the bank of the river. Your main focus should be cutting the Shogunate. Your head falling with it is a whole different story."  
"I have my ways."  
"And it’s a lifetime I tell you _your ways_ are too risky."  
"Why should you care now?"

Katsura kept him waiting for an answer, undecided about what it should be and undecided between his logical and emotional part.  
  
_Because are you my friend? A comrade? A bond to happy childhood memories? One of the two only people who can understand how I’m feeling? A part of what Shouyou-sensei left behind to protect?_

"The Joui forces that really want to overthrow the government and not merely exploit its name as a mask to make as they like sulling our reputation are scanty. Your group needs its general," he finally said, deciding for the rational and saving as much as possible the shell that he already felt creaking.  
"Zura, I don’t care about these skirmishes. I’m going to destroy this world. Rip the flesh off biting it with my fangs. Drink the blood. Reduce its bones to dust."  
At these words, Katsura's eyes widened and for a moment he was afraid the tea would go sideways. He put his cup on the table and coughed.

"Excuse me, can you repeat?"  
"Are you deaf? I said that I’m going to destroy this world by tearing its flesh away with my fangs."  
"I'm not deaf, I'm Katsura. And it is definitely going to give you indigestion. The Bakufu is clearly spoilt."  
Shinsuke frowned and drank some tea.  
"You know ... I thought you were better at metaphors."  
"I'm not better at metaphors, I'm Katsura."  
"This is obvious," Takasugi retorted. "But I meant to say another thing, Zura."  
  
Before he could correct him, Kotarou was attracted by a movement of the other and noticed that the fingers of his left hand had also gone to the cup, but missed it at the first attempt, as if they had tried to grasp something that was not there middle way. Katsura looked at his face, and thought that he seemed to be lost in contemplating another dimension.  
  
"What, _Shinsuke_?" He asked in a remarkably softened, more confidential and intimate tone.  
He rarely called Takasugi by name, never casually, and he was sure the other had noticed it.  
Shinsuke's eye met Kotarou's and his expression suddenly changed from absent to concentrated.  
"Do you have a beast, Zura?"  
"A beast?" He blinked, serious-faced. "What are you talking about?"  
"I'm talking about something that takes possession of your soul and mind. Something that roars, howls, whispers, _screams_ to kill, and demands violence and blood as a tribute to calm down and give rest."  
Katsura opened his mouth and looked at him, incredulous and at the same time worried about his words, yet there was no trace of fear on his face.  
"No, I don’t have it. Surely not in the terms you used."  
"And yet you want to take down the Bakufu."  
  
Kotarou sighed and closed his eyes.  
"I feel anger and hatred, yes. I want them to pay and destroy the Shogunate in order to lay the foundations of a new country, and if I have to get my hands dirty or sacrifice lives –  well – it's a necessary tribute. I owe this to _every_ corpse, to every survivor, to every person who still hopes for a better country... And to _us."_  
  
_All_ three _of us._  
  
Takasugi studied him for a few moments and took a long sip.  
"Looks like we're going part of the way together."  
" _Part of the way_? What do you mean?" Kotarou asked intrigued, an arched eyebrow and the inclined head to the right.  
"I don’t care about the reconstruction part."  
"Don’t you want to live in a better world?"  
"I don’t care to be alive by then, Zura. I don’t want to ‘ _succeed or die trying_ ’. I want to drag them with me into the Hell, from the first to the last one, and keep cutting them to shreds there, again and again, for eternity."  
"So you'll never have peace."  
"Peace doesn't suit me."  
  
Katsura looked down and stared at an indistinct spot in the middle of the table, not knowing what to say or whether there was anything that _could_ actually help him.  
_What would Shouyou-sensei say?_  
"You'll get used to it," he simply answered.  
"I don’t want to get used to it! Damn it, Zura!" His voice had grown slightly higher, and Kotarou gave him a reproachful glare.  
"Please do not yell, you'll wake Victoria," he scolded him.  
Takasugi lightly shook his head and widened his eyes, visibly surprised.  
" ... Who is Victoria?"  
" _Meow_ ~"

They both turned toward the newly heard sound, and saw a huge, semi-long black-furred cat stretch out in a corner, which immediately scurried toward them, approaching Shinsuke.  
"Here, she is Victoria."  
"Victoria," Shinsuke repeated. He stared at the feline that was sniffing at the fingers of his right hand, studying each other.  
  
"Yes, Victoria. Like the foreign queen."  
"Ironic, for a nationalist who wants to overthrow the authority ..."  
"I like studying history."  
"Zura, are you serious? You barely manage to make ends meet, and you took a cat? You won’t really ever change, eh?"  
"I did not take her, she came alone. She’s a stray, and therefore ..."  
  
Victoria rubbed its snout on Shinsuke's knee and turned the back on him, lifted its tail and headed for Katsura.  
"She likes you," Katsura said slightly smiling.  
"Zura, have you ever noticed that your cat is a boy?"  
"What? No, she’s not! And I'm Katsura."  
"You're always the same stubborn idiot who refuses to see anything other than what he has decided. He's got testicles, he's definitely a boy."  
  
Kotarou got the cat on his knees and started to scratch it under the chin.  
"No ... She only has a little big butt, that's all. You know, I pamper her a little."  
"You would be able to kill yourself by accident."  
"You see? The beasts can be tamed ..." Kotarou told him, ignoring his comment.  
"Only those who want to be tamed," Takasugi answered, and Katsura said nothing more, busy cuddling the cat on the stomach.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Was it a dream?"
> 
> or 
> 
> "In what direction are we going, Shinsuke?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... This is the last chapter. 
> 
> In the previous one I forgot mentioning this is linked to Entangled, and it is set before (obliously). 
> 
> ~~Enjoui!~~ Enjoy

 

 

Kotarou was awakened by a gust of cool wind on his bare back only partially covered by sheets and hair still collected in the low ponytail, but untidy and tied.  
  
His body rested on his belly on the mattress, heavy and tired, his throat parched, his head throbbing, causing an intense nuisance and he stretched out his right arm, feeling the space at his side empty and cold.  
  
He squeezed his eyes several times and waited a few seconds to get used to the darkness in the room, waiting for the sight to confirm that he was alone in the futon, which didn’t require much time.

 

 _Was it a dream?_  
  
He closed his eyes to try to remember and retrace the memories of the previous night in his mind: some scenes were intense and detailed – he leant on Shinsuke and brushed their lips; their clothes slip on the floor; hands touching, exploring, clenching and scratching; mouths kissing, panting, biting, tasting, mumbling, begging.  
  
_"I don’t want to think, don’t make me think, Shinsuke"_  
  
Other images appeared instead vague and faded, as when looking through a light veil of tears.  
  
He tried to concentrate and rewind the tape, go back a few hours, to try to remember what had happened before.    
  
He had been with Shinsuke at a place Kotarou had not ever noticed, although it was in a street where he had been several times. He had stopped his own pace, clenched his fists and nervously contracted his jaw when entering he had noticed that the entire staff and most of the customers were Amanto of all species – leopards, pigs, lions, bears and any other type of fauna possible.  
  
A telling glance and a nod from Shinsuke had urged him to proceed and they sat down with three tokkuri of expensive sake for special occasions in a rather secluded and dark corner of the place, which however allowed them a view on the entire room.  
The environment was a strange mix – not a middle ground – between the luxurious and the rough, almost vulgar that had made Kotarou think that place was a cover for under-the-table activity.  
  
"Did you take me to drink or take a trip to the zoo?" Katsura had remarked, angry, his arms crossed over the chest and his look – annoyed and offended – on Shinsuke, who was pouring the drink for both of them.  
  
The other chuckled – Kotarou wondered if he was really amused, and had the feeling that it was not that kind of laugh – and took the ochoko in his hands bringing it close to his lips.  
"In a sense, both. Let's drink a little now, then I'll tell you."  
Kotarou nibbled his lower lip, his right foot drummed nervously at the floor, then sighed and they drank at the same moment.  
Shinsuke poured other alcohol in the ochoko, which were emptied and filled again, and so up to empty the first tokkuri without neither of them saying a single word.  
For all the time spent there, their cups would not remain empty for a few seconds.  
  
"Then?"

"The man dressed in blue sitting at the table near the desk – _no, don’t look at him now, Zura ."_  
"My name is Katsura."  
Shinsuke grinned and took his kiseru, a box of matches, and a black-and-gold lacquered box full of tobacco from a pocket of the haori.  
  
"Better if you hold back from correcting me, here. I was saying," he stopped talking to light the kiseru and take a long puff. "His name is Hayashi Daijirou. He is a Bakufu official." Takasugi emptied the cup and Katsura did the same, as if there was a silent agreement between the two to drink every time the other did.  
"He doesn't have a high rank in the Shogunate, he is more one who exploits his position to get rich unnoticed. He eases _certain types of business_ to Amanto for bribes. Illegal activities, of course, that the government can’t explicitly allow but from which it still obtains advantages. And do you know how he got his position?"  
Another puff of smoke emphasized the pause and Katsura shook his head, staring at Takasugi; eyes on him and only him.  
"He’s one that before, during and after the war has denounced and sold a lot of people as rebels, including children, enough to gain a position. An excellent symbol of this rotten Shogunate, isn’t he?"  
  
They drank again, and Katsura glanced fleetingly at the man dressed in blue, clutching his own fingers to his light blue of raw fabric kimono.  
The alcohol was rapidly melting his glacial armor and Takasugi's words were inexorably insinuating, allowing the anger to begin to flow drop by drop and eroding more deeply his barrier of cold and dignified composure.  
  
"And the bald bespectacled man he's talking to is called _'The Crippled_ ," Shinsuke continued. "He claims it to be a war wound, but the truth is that he was maimed by polio when he was a child. He is the bookkeeper of this place, and obviously also the treasurer who deals with money laundering. The only clean thing in this place is sake. Enjoy it, Zura."  
  
Kotarou weighed for a moment the word he had just heard and drunk the whole glass.  
He narrowed his eyes as the liquid came down his throat but he began to feel it rise to his head.  
Evidently, Takasugi was doing his research and collecting data, too.  
  
"Why are you giving this information to me?" He asked after clearing his throat.  
Shinsuke filled the cups of both – now from the third tokkuri – and inhaled smoke.  
"’Cause I want to see what you'll do with it."  
"Are you testing me?"  
"If you want to call it that ..."  
"Yes or no, Shinsuke?"  
"Kind of that," Takasugi replied mildly.

This time it was Katsura who first took the ochoko to drink, and the other did the same.  
"Why?" He asked slightly mumbling as Shinsuke poured saké and Kotarou began to struggle to see clearly. He tried to concentrate on the other, trying to see better: if Shinsuke too was getting drunk, he was not showing it, excluding the eye reddening, the skin of the face and neck beaded with sweat and the fact that the lips were often moistened due to the dryness given by the drinking.  
  
"Let's say I'm curious to see how you act now," he said before swallowing another cup.  
  
Katsura stood still and drank a few seconds later. After putting the cup down, he brought his right hand to the hilt of the hidden katana at his side.  
The pupil of Takasugi's eye widened and an amused sound came out of his lips.  
"Oh, is that what you want to do? That seems more like me."  
Katsura did not answer and remained motionless with his hand tightened to the hilt; Takasugi poured saké again from the bottle, emptying it.  
"This is the last cup, Zura. After this, do what you want ... I'll support you."

Kotarou raised the ochoko with his left hand and drank; his face was showing an expression that wanted to be concentrated, but ultimately appeared absent.  
He put down the cup and left the grip of the hilt, glancing at his friend, then fumbled at the kimono's pockets and placed a spherical object on the table that made a metallic sound.  
  
"Interesting decision ..." Takasugi commented.  
"One minute," Katsura said, starting to set the bomb.  
"Let’s say ... Twenty seconds," Shinsuke replied.  
"Are you crazy?" Kotarou mumbled wide-eyed.  
The other grinned and took a puff of smoke.  
"Twenty seconds," Shinsuke repeated.  
  
Katsura bent his back forward to the other, his forearms resting on the table's surface.  
"We risk getting involved too, this way," he hissed.  
"Are you worried about that?" He asked, raising an eyebrow, pretending to be surprised.  
_Of course you know I'm worried, you idiot._  
  
Katsura turned the bomb in his hands and started pressing the keys.  
"Thirty-five. Not a second less. Come on," he ordered and got up from his chair, then and took the first step.  
The counter on the screen began the countdown and Kotarou turned: Shinsuke was still sitting and staring at him.  
" _Let's go_ , I said," Katsura repeated in the same resolute tone he used during the war to give orders. His voice and his fists clenched were showing all his irritation and worry.  
  
He approached Takasugi, determined to grab him by the wrist and drag him out using force, if necessary, but a moment before this could happen the screen marked twenty seconds and Shinsuke stood up of his own will.  
"I told you I have the time I decide to have, Zura."  
Katsura was too busy making sure they came out alive to think of scolding him.

The two of them made long strides side by side outside the club, and once they were in a filthy and dark alley on the other side of the street, they heard a loud explosion and an intense air drift; they saw pieces of wood and bricks crashing on the road and the sidewalk, and the flames flared up.  
Katsura laid his back and nape against the wall behind him and sighed halfway between relief and satisfaction.  
Shinsuke was shifting his glare between him and the burning place.  
  
"It was risky, Takasugi," Katsura said, gasping for adrenaline and the ride they made as soon as they stepped out of that place.  
His heartbeats were crazed and he brought his right hand on his chest to perceive them better; his lips were raising a smile and his eyes were closed.  
"Still it seems to me that you are being really alive for the first time since I saw you again."  
Katsura looked up at him: maybe Takasugi was right, but he sadly realized he could not say the same about him.  
The two terrorists had already turned their backs on the alley when they began to hear the sirens of the fire truck and police cars.  
  
  


 

*

  
  
  
_What a strange dream ..._  
  
For a moment, an excruciating doubt even more terrible than the headache hit Katsura, who found himself wondering even if he had actually seen Shinsuke that day.  
  
Since the end of the war it had happened often to have real hallucinatory states – not simple daydreams – which overlapped with reality; days when he had been wholly convinced that he had seen or done a certain thing or talked to a certain person, only to discover with great surprise and disappointment that it had never happened.  
  
A noise made him suddenly come back from the half-sleep state he was and the flow of his thoughts, and brought his right hand instinctively under the pillow in search of the wakizashi ready to defend himself; the left one was already pulling the scabbard and the first inches of the blade were unsheathed.  
  
He raised his head and turned, only then he noticed a trickle of saliva on the corner of his mouth lost during sleep.  
  
His gaze met the shape of a man sitting at his window and it took him a while before he realized who he was and that Victoria had laid on his lap.  
  
"... Takasugi," he said after his initial disorientation, and quickly closed the blade sheath and wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.  
The other looked at him, took a puff of smoke and exhaled it outward.  
"Already awake, Zura?"  
"Katsura... How long have I been sleeping?"  
"Three hours or so."  
"And you?"  
"Thirty minutes, maybe."  
"I thought I dreamed of you."  
"Do you usually have _that kind of dream_ about the people you know?"  
  
"S-shut up! Of course I don’t!" Kotarou stammered, raising his voice, and his cheeks flushed. A renewed pang in his head made him bring both hands on it and he massaged, running his fingers through his knotted hair.  
"Drinking water would ease it, Zura."  
"Katsura. Did you read it on some magazines? A short paragraph alongside _Guide to Edo's underground clubs_?"  
"What are you talking about? I've never read that stuff. It was a scientific journal."  
"If you read scientific journals, you should also know that smoking is not good for your health at all. Since when do you do it?"  
The other looked outside and remained silent.

"Takasugi?"  
Kotarou called him, staring at him, and leaned forward, waiting.  
"Shinsuke?"  
"For a few months," he answered not looking back.  
"It’s going to kill you."  
"Slowly enough not to be the cause of my death. I told you, didn’t I? I’ll have the time that I decide."  
"You smoke, you do not sleep... You're hurting yourself."  
"I don’t think you're doing much better than me." This time their eyes meet for a moment, until Shinsuke looked out and Kotarou stared at a fold of the sheets.  
  
"In what direction are we going, Shinsuke?" He murmured after a few minutes of silence.  
"Adrift. Towards a dead-end street, in the darkness of an eternal night. With the rest of the world."  
"Every night is followed by the dawn, Shinsuke."  
"You’re day-dreaming as always."  
  
Kotarou sighed and let his body fall back on the futon, his eyes fixed on the ceiling and an imperceptible smile on his lips.  
"At least when I can decide what dreams to have, I prefer there’s the sun."  
"If this satisfies you ..."  
"Not really, but that's something ... As the fact that today you’ve befriended a beast."  
  
 

 

*

 

  
Katsura placed two bowls of undresses rice and two cups of tea on the table.  
"Have you ever thought about keeping your hair loose?" Takasugi asked casually after a few mouthfuls.

Kotarou raised an eyebrow.  
"Loose hair…? How did it come to your mind?"

"I've thought you always kept it tied. Perhaps loose hair would suit you better."  
"It’s too long, loose hair would be a nuisance."  
Yet he sighed and unknotted the string that was tying the last few inches of his tresses, still ruffled from the previous night, and placed it next to the cup.  
"You mean like this?" He asked, flapping the locks with his hand, which got stuck into a tangle.

Shinsuke grinned and took a sip.  
"Maybe next time."  
"Yes, next time ..." Kotarou repeated absentminded and went back to eating.

  
"I liked what you did yesterday night, Zura. I mean, who would have expected something like that by a monk," Shinsuke said after a few minutes of silence.  
Katsura slammed the rice bowl and the hashi on the table.  
"Ta-Takasugi! Do not even try to start embarrassing speeches like this! And that's a disguise!" He stammered, and the voice rose an octave; the cheeks gaining a reddish hue.  
" ... I was talking about the place you blew up," the other replied, not a bit fazed by the outburst.  
"Ah." Katsura turned his look even more embarrassed and his face ablaze; a nail planted in the wall by the previous owner had suddenly become interesting. "I …"  
"You needed not to think," Shinsuke began when the other did not continue the sentence. Slowly Kotarou looked back at him.  
"Remembering that you still exist, but making so you didn’t feel guilty. Someone who knew your body well, your visible and invisible scars, how your mind works enough to understand all this without asking anything, because you would never have known how to tell it:"  
  
Kotarou swallowed a mouthful, amazed and fascinated that Shinsuke's ability to read and analyze people and situations better than they could have even improved.  
"Are you still talking about the club ...?"  
"I'm talking about you."  
"And what about you?"  
"Some of our needs are opposite but compatible. No, they are compatible because they’re opposite. Otherwise, do you really believe I would have indulged you?"  
  
Kotarou swallowed his last bite with the help of tea.  
_I have to clear my mind._

"I need to groom myself."  
"Sure," Shinsuke said and ate a bite while the other was already heading for the bathroom.  
  
  
  
  
Katsura closed the door behind him.  
The basin under the dripping tap was half full and sighed. He had been leaking for a week, and he still hadn’t fix it.  
His face was reflected in the small mirror hanging on the wall and he gave a glare eyes wide, almost frightened at his image.  
  
_A disaster. A complete, terrible disaster unworthy of a samurai._  
  
Headache still there aside, his eyes were still reddish from the night before; the skin of his face emaciated face and hued of a pale grayish shade; the dark circles under his eyes reminded him when he had to use make-up for work but when he got home he was too tired to remove it – even though he knew he would regret it the next day; the lips were as dry as the skin around and split in what looked like a bite; a trail of purple hickeys on the sides of the neck, that he would have to cover with a scarf for days, and he did not need to check to know they were not only there.  
  
He pulled up and tied with the tasuki the kimono's sleeves, staring at the skin and his gaze fell on the bites and scratches traced on the forearms, which he examined carefully.  
  
_He needs to feel he is in control ...?_  
  
His left hand softly picked up his tangled hair on the back of his neck, while with the right he threw water on his face and neck. It was freezing, but even if he had wanted to warm it to the fire – "I really have to get a water heater" – he would not. Warm water would not have wiped out that little bit of weariness perpetually on his face that he was allowed to remove, nor would help him to think.  
  
The mint flavour of the toothpaste replaced the sour, musty taste of the sake of the night before and the rice just eaten in the mouth, and it seemed to him that he felt a little better.  
With his fingertips, he carefully unravelled all the knots he could find in his tresses, slowly and not tearing, then carefully began to brush them.  
From the tips to the roots, the bristles sank between the locks, until they no longer encountered any obstacles nor resistance.  
  
_"Kotarou, what are you doing ...?"_ He murmured to himself in a whisper; his arms outstretched at the sink to hold most of his weight and his eyes fixed on his reflection, uncertain of which Katsura would have been that day, and of which knew the answer.  
  
_What are you doing?_  
  
The drops of water fell into the basin from the closed tap and watched them break the surface, disconnected from reality, until he heard the door of the entrance open and then close immediately shaking him from the numbness in which he had fallen.  
  
_"What?"_  
  
A moment later he was out of the bathroom.  
Shinsuke had slipped away like a shadow and not saying a word, leaving the empty cup of tea and the rice bowl, and Kotarou with his doubts.  
If he ran out, he could certainly have reached him, but he decided not to.  
_He understood he did not have to do it._  
  
He sat down again and noticed that there was no longer his hair string next to the cup.  
" _Next time_..." he murmured touching the strands of hair that fell loose on his shoulders.  
Katsura frowned, and his lips slowly cracked into a smile, degenerating into a low laugh at first, then louder and louder, so violent to stop only when it left him lying on the floor breathless. Now it had become silent while his lips kept moving like in a spasm.  
  
Victoria gave a shrill mew and raises its hair.  
  
Several minutes passed before he caught his breath and sat down again; his mind finally succeeded in formulating a coherent and logical thought.  
He did not know when it would be 'next time', but Shinsuke would find him with another mask: the one he – maybe unconsciously – had helped create by taking his string.  
  
There was room for a Katsura Kotarou with his hair down, as _Shouyou-sensei_ used to, and which perhaps knew the answers to his questions.

_Just like he usually did._

  
  
  



End file.
